{"id":450237,"date":"2026-09-28T16:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T16:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/450237\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T16:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T16:26:10","slug":"data-centers-in-tarrant-among-those-being-probed-as-texas-ag-demands-water-usage-response-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/450237\/","title":{"rendered":"Data centers in Tarrant among those being probed as Texas AG demands water usage response"},"content":{"rendered":"

Data centers in 18 counties, including Tarrant, are being investigated<\/a> by the Texas attorney general\u2019s office, which is demanding the developments report water usage as required by law.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Ken Paxton is launching the investigation into data centers that have yet to respond to the Texas Water Development Board\u2019s water survey, according to a news release published Thursday.<\/p>\n

Under state law, the water board \u2014 the agency that plans for future water needs and accounts for resource demands \u2014 requires all recipients to fill out the survey. Those recipients include entities that use ground and surface water supplies for municipal, industrial, power generation or mining purposes, the release states.<\/p>\n

The water board\u2019s survey targets facilities that use more than 10 million gallons per year<\/a>, The Texas Tribune reported.<\/p>\n

The application collects annual water use data<\/a> across the state for the board\u2019s regional planning and resource management, according to the water board\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Data centers across Tarrant and 17 other counties \u2014 Harris, Montgomery, Travis, Dallas, Smith and Bexar being among them \u2014 will also undergo an initial investigation, according to the release.<\/p>\n

Data centers in the following counties will be investigated:HarrisMontgomeryTravisDallasTarrantSmithBexarTom GreenPotterRandallLubbockMidlandEctorWichitaVictoriaBrazosNuecesEl Paso<\/p>\n

Governments or companies that fail to submit the surveys lose eligibility for financial assistance from the water board and water rights permits.<\/p>\n

The release does not specify which Tarrant County data centers are being investigated.<\/p>\n

Data centers planned or currently in development<\/a> in Tarrant County include facilities headed by Black Mountain, Edged Data Centers and Circle T. Two data centers are proposed in Fort Worth\u2019s extraterritorial jurisdiction on Robertson Road.<\/p>\n

The move comes after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state water board<\/a> earlier this month to crack down on major water users, including data centers, that do not report their consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cData centers must share the duty to protect Texas water,\u201d Abbott said in a Sept. 14 news release.<\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s office directed the water board to refer to county and district attorneys for prosecution and notify the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to halt the issuance of permits.<\/p>\n

A week later, Abbott directly ordered the state environmental commission to stop issuing new permits for data centers until an audit of the developments looking to build in Texas is completed. The audits are to include<\/a> information about planned data centers\u2019 tax exemptions, power usage and generation, water use and cooling methods, ownership and how operators will mitigate impacts to local communities.<\/p>\n

In the past few years, only a percentage of data centers were reporting their water use, according to The Texas Tribune. That includes 30% of a total of 329 data centers that were surveyed last year, according to the report.<\/p>\n

The survey\u2019s 2025 results show the QTS and Meta data centers in Fort Worth are among the state\u2019s facilities that use the most water.<\/p>\n

Like other communities across the state, Fort Worth and Tarrant County are seeing a booming interest from developers<\/a> to build data centers.<\/p>\n

This has prompted outcry and advocacy from residents, many of them citing concerns about a lack of transparency and little information about how much water and electricity the hubs would use.<\/p>\n

Nicole Lopez is the environment reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at nicole.lopez@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Report\u2019s environment coverage is supported by the Marilyn Brachman Hoffman Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Data centers in 18 counties, including Tarrant, are being investigated by the Texas attorney general\u2019s office, which is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-450237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}